


Beautiful, Probably

by mustachio



Category: Book of Life (2014)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, talk of major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:57:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3439508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustachio/pseuds/mustachio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mourning a loved one is never an easy thing, but when you're mourning them with someone you love just as much, the world starts to seem a little less dreary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful, Probably

"Joaquín?"

The knock at the door is light, almost inaudible, but in the absolute silence of his room it might just as well be cannon fire. He wipes his hand over his face, trying to erase the exhaustion he knows is written clear across it. The picture in his hands feels like a weight. It had been taken years before María was sent to Spain, back when they had first met and the three amigos had still been learning just how well they fit together. That was another lifetime ago. María knocks again and Joaquín knows he can’t ignore her.

“Come in! I’m just, um, I’m just getting dressed.” 

He goes to run his hands over his shirt to smooth out the wrinkles, stops short when he realizes his medals are in the way. He hasn’t even begun to change his clothes. There’s no time to try changing before María comes in. Joaquín spins around quickly to greet her and ends up with his mouth hanging open when his breath catches in his throat and keeps the words from forming.

“Getting dressed, huh?” María stands there with a small smirk on her face, her hands on her hips, but there’s a sadness behind her smirk that Joaquín can’t help but notice.

“Yeah, I guess I got a little distracted. But María, you look beautiful,” And he blushes, feeling the need to backtrack slightly. “Not that you don’t always look beautiful. It’s just—you, in that dress—you look—you look just. Wow.”

It occurs to him that none of that makes for a better compliment than ‘you look beautiful,’ but once he starts going he can’t seem to make himself stop. María doesn’t even seem to be listening, though. She’s looking just past him at his bed. Or more specifically, at the picture he left there when she walked in the room. Joaquín sighs and knows that the brief attempts at keeping things lighthearted have already come to an end.

“I found it while I was looking through my drawers the other day. I don’t even remember when it was taken.”

He sits back on his bed, tapping his fingers on the blankets in time with a rhythm that only exists inside his head. María sits next to him. She holds the picture in her hand delicately, like it might be ruined if she doesn’t treat it like a thin piece of glass. The way she runs her fingers over Manolo’s young face causes a strong tugging feeling at his heart. 

“I do.” Her voice comes out in a whisper. “It was the day Manolo got his first guitar. He tried to play for us without knowing anything about it.”

Joaquín closes his eyes and in the darkness he imagines he can see them in that moment again. He and María are sitting near the statue of his father. Manolo is standing a little ways off from them. The guitar is too big for him. He struggles to hold it properly and when he finally manages that, the song he plays is just random strumming. It sounds discordant and off-key but when he’s done they clap for him anyway and yell “encore, encore” because Manolo will get better with time and practice and they want to be there every step of the way. The image is shattered by the sound of sniffling. 

Beside him María is crying, covering her mouth to try and stop the sounds. He hears them anyway and can’t miss the tears running down her face. The medal doesn’t stop the pain from stabbing at him from the inside. He puts the picture off to the side and gathers her into his arms. She falls into his embrace easily.

“We don’t have to do this, you know.”

María pulls away from him. She looks at him like she doesn’t understand what he’s saying, like the idea that they don’t have to get married never crossed her mind.

“You don’t have to marry me to get me to stay, María. I’ll fight Chakal. I’ll protect the town. Please don’t force yourself to do this because you think this is the only way to get me to stay.”

With some hesitation, Joaquín lets his arms fall to his sides. He gets up and walks to his dresser because he can’t bear to look at María when she responds. There isn’t much on it. Most of the things on top of it are from when he was a kid. He hadn’t realized until recently how little time he’d really spent at home even before he began traveling all over Mexico fighting bandits. He tries to count how many of the little trinkets and toys cluttering the dresser were gifts from Manolo or María and stops when he realizes the answer is all but two. Those had been from his father.

“What?”

Joaquín turns to look at her again, but the mix of pain and confusion on her face make it hard to face her so he moves his gaze to the air just above her head instead.

“You don’t love me the way I love you. You love Manolo. I know that.”

And that much is true. He doesn’t want María to marry him because her father made her feel like it was her duty. He doesn’t want to trap her in a marriage of obligation. It’s also that Joaquín can’t think of anything he’d like to do less than get married without Manolo standing right beside him, supporting him every step of the way. Because in all of his fantasies—whether the bride was María or not—Manolo was there. 

Manolo isn’t here now and something about getting married without him feels downright unnatural.

María balls her hands into fists at her sides, wrinkling the sheets ever so slightly. Then she stands. The confusion has cleared from her face, except now there’s another expression in its place. He can’t interpret this one.

“Don’t tell me how I feel, Joaquín.” Her voice is slightly shaky, rough from crying, but her irritation shines through.

“María…”

“So we don’t get married and you still stay to fight Chakal. What about after that? What about when Chakal is no longer a threat to San Angel? Will you leave again to find some new enemy to fight?”

He doesn’t have an answer for her. Truth be told, he hadn’t really thought about that. Most likely, he would continue his travels. But he can’t say that to her. Something in his gut tells him that admitting to that would be the wrong answer.

“I just lost Manolo. Don’t make me lose you, too, Joaquín.”

Guilt settles where the instinct not to admit to his probable continual travels had been.

“María, you will never lose me. Even if I’m not in San Angel, you will always be one—you will always be my dearest friend.”

Because it doesn’t really work to say “one of my dearest friends” when the other one is dead, now does it? María shakes her head. That’s not enough for her.

“No. I know how rarely you came back before. I won’t let you go back to that and tell me that I won’t be losing you.”

There isn’t much Joaquín can say to that. She’s right, of course. If he’s not physically there, then he can’t claim to be there for her at all. Mail is hardly reliable when both parties involved stay in one place. It will only be worse when he’s constantly moving around. Their letters will be few and far between just the way they were when María was in Spain. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to fall into fighting with Manolo. Maybe Manolo had felt like Joaquín had left him and then Joaquín had to go and make everything a fight for María and then he had said such terrible things to Manolo. Things Joaquín never could have meant. Things that may have been all the confirmation that both of the people he cared most about were no longer in his life and things that may have been the last straw.

He can’t stop the choked out sob that rips itself out of his throat. María looks at him, alarmed, while Joaquín sinks to the ground with his head in his hands. Maybe Manolo would still be alive if Joaquín knew how to be a better friend.

The thought comes to him with all the force of a rampaging bull and coils around his mind like a snake. It may have been a snake’s venom that took Manolo’s life, María’s presumed death that put his mind in such a fragile place, but maybe—probably—it was Joaquín’s own words that put him over the edge. 

“You wouldn’t want me around if you knew what I said to him before he died.” The breath he lets out is shaky. No tears have fallen yet, but Joaquín can feel them building up behind his eyes and he knows that he won’t have the strength to hold them back.

María takes a tentative step forward, unsure of how to comfort him. She’s only ever seen him break down like this once—at his father’s funeral. At that time she had Manolo to help her help Joaquín through it. Now Manolo is the one they’re mourning and she has no idea what Joaquín said to him before he died. Part of her thinks she doesn’t want to know. It might be easier that way. But she has to know. She won’t be able to do anything for Joaquín if she doesn’t. 

“What did you say to him?”

There is no accusation in her voice, though Joaquín almost wishes there was. He deserves accusation. He deserves anger and hatred and hostility. That isn’t what he gets. Instead, María’s voice holds nothing but concern and curiosity. That will change once he answers the question, he knows that. There’s no way it won’t and for that another strangled sob makes its way out of his throat. He presses the heels of his palms closer against his eyes, willing the tears to give him just a few more seconds.

“It was after the snake bit you—when we all thought you were dead.” He takes another shaky breath. “I blamed him. I asked him why he didn’t protect you and said that it should have been him instead and now he’s gone!”

He’s feeling a little bit hysterical. He’s afraid to open his eyes to see the hatred that must be burning in María’s face, but it’s hell to keep his eyes closed. The memory of Manolo’s body seems to be imprinted on the back of his eyelids. He hates thinking about Manolo’s colorless face. He hates thinking about the smile on his face—he probably thought he’d at least get the chance to be with María, but now Joaquín has gone and taken that away from him.

“My best friend is gone and the last thing I said to him was that I wanted him dead. I might as well have been the one to kill him!”

María says nothing for a long moment. The only sounds in the room are Joaquín’s ragged breathing and it’s agonizing. Eventually, she kneels in front of him and pulls his hands away from his face. Even there, in front of him, she doesn’t say a word. Joaquín doesn’t look up at her. He can’t.

“It would be so easy,” She starts, finally. “To tell you that I hate you. That I blame you for Manolo’s death. Then you could go, leave San Angel to fight bandits, to separate yourself from the things that make you hurt. But I don’t. I don’t hate you and I don’t blame you for Manolo’s death.”

“María—”

“Look at me, Joaquín.” When he doesn’t listen, María puts her hands on both of his cheeks and forces his head up. They’re wet with tears that still fall from his eyes, but she doesn’t take her hands away. She needs him to look at her. “Words cannot describe how mad I am at you for the things you said to Manolo, but I do not think that what you said pushed him to his death. He loved you too much to believe that you could ever want him dead. He knew you loved him too much to ever want that.”

“But he is dead, María! He’s dead and it happened minutes after I yelled at him—” Joaquín pushes her hands off of him. Another sob rips through him with enough force that he doubles over. The tears come stronger now.

She pulls Joaquín forward in a tight hug. Joaquín’s head rests against her chest and María runs her hands through his hair in an attempt to soothe him. It doesn’t seem to work. He continues on like this for the next few minutes, until María begins to sing the first song Manolo had ever written and only ever performed for them.

“Please don’t make me do this, María. I don’t want to take Manolo’s place. I can’t marry you like this.”

“You will never take Manolo’s place.”

“Then why do you want to go through with this wedding?”

María gently lifts Joaquín’s head off of her chest. He watches her carefully, studies her face for anything that might help him understand. He doesn’t realize until it’s happening what María intends, barely registers her leaning in towards him until her lips are pressed against his for the briefest of seconds.

“You don’t need to take Manolo’s place. There is a place in my heart for you and only you just like the one for Manolo. I love you. I always have.”

“But Manolo—“

“Manolo is gone.” María leans her forehead against Joaquín’s as best they can. Even with both of them on the floor, she still has to lean up to reach. “That’s something we’ll have to learn to live with. It will be hard, but we can do it together. We have to.”

Joaquín doesn’t say anything at first, content to just let María hold him against her. The taste of her is still on his lips. It’s intoxicating. He closes his eyes and considers the idea that she has always been in love with him, that the place in her heart for him is the same sort as the place for Manolo. It doesn’t seem as surprising as it should. But how could it, really, when he’s felt the same way about her and Manolo for as long as he can remember? For all the shock he doesn’t feel he can’t imagine why he made María’s affection a competition. What might life have been like if only he hadn’t been too stubborn to let all three of them come together?

Beautiful, probably.

“Marry me, Joaquín. Not because my father is pushing for it or because you need a reason to stay. Marry me because we love and need each other.”

María kisses him again. It’s more forceful this time, but it’s warm and inviting and sweet. María tastes like candy underneath the salt of his tears. Joaquín kisses her back and when he does she lets out a satisfied hum. The kiss seems to steal the breath right out of his lungs. When they part, the breath he does have left is shakey, the sound he makes is a cross between a sob and a laugh.

“I miss him so much already, María.”

She tangles her fingers with his, rubbing her thumb across the back of his hand.

“I do, too. But we’ll get through this together. And eventually, we’ll see Manolo again and the three of us can all be together just like we should be.”

Joaquín smiles. It’s a small, watery thing, but it’s a smile that feels like a victory. María returns it.

“Okay.” Joaquín says. “Okay, let’s do this.”


End file.
